John McCain: The grand inquisitor

It usually takes a lot to rattle the Pentagon’s top brass, but John McCain’s got a knack for doing just that.

Since returning to the Senate after his failed 2008 presidential bid, McCain has settled into the role of his party’s chief inquisitor on military issues and foreign affairs, a position that has given him new life as an informal leader among his GOP colleagues.

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McCain to Hagel: Answer the question

Never has that status been more evident than in his aggressive questioning at three recent hearings, including two on the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on America’s consulate in Benghazi and a nearby U.S. facility.

On Thursday Martin Dempsey, the highest-ranking military officer in the land, found just how deep McCain’s frustration runs the hard way at an Armed Services Committee hearing on the assault, which killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Dempsey is just the latest in a parade of unlucky Obama administration officials and nominees have been pitted against McCain under the bright lights of Senate hearings. Chuck Hagel, a fellow Vietnam veteran and former chum, got the McCain treatment when he appeared as President Barack Obama’s nominee to succeed Panetta last month. And Hillary Clinton, who once beat McCain in a vodka-shot contest, got a lecture from her former colleague when she came to the Foreign Relations Committee to testify on Benghazi.

The exchange Thursday was one of the toughest so far.

McCain looked to Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for an answer to the question of why the military wasn’t better prepared to intervene with air power. He called Dempsey’s opening statement “one of the most bizarre” he’d ever heard in his years in the Senate and accused him of providing “simply false” information.

“For you to testify that our posture did not allow a rapid response — our posture was not there because we didn’t take into account the threats to that consulate, and that’s why four Americans died. We could have placed forces there,” McCain said.

Dempsey, seated next to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at the witness table, didn’t back down a bit in the face of McCain’s grilling.

“Let me begin by saying I stand by my testimony, your dispute of it notwithstanding,” he started. “But I would like to say …”

“Perhaps you can give me some facts that would substantiate it,” McCain interjected with trademark snark.

The exchange is just the latest round. McCain hammered away at Hagel on the Nebraskan’s opposition to President George W. Bush’s “surge” strategy in Iraq, asking him whether he was right or wrong. Hagel hemmed and hawed. McCain interjected repeatedly, prodding him for a yes or no answer six times before saying, “I would like you to answer whether you were right or wrong, and then you are free to elaborate.”